Lord, let me make a fast,
From all those things that have filled my belly for so
long. Bloated from excesses, slowed and dulled and
numbed in spirit. Lord, let me make a fast from those
Poisons I have called nourishment, from the
Poverty I have called wealth, from that
Shallowness I have called depth, from any
Meagerness I have called abundance.
I am ready to go out with You to be emptied
in whatever desert will be mine.
Lord let me make a fast.
May I fast from speed.
May I drive more slowly.
May I remove these shoes that help me walk
Quickly, and with great purpose—
and may my feet contact your earth,
slowly and with great care,
with gentleness and with much respect.
May I walk as your calm presence in this world.
May my voice be lower, slower.
May it be a voice more understood
by those whose ears are failing;
a safer voice that does not make the listener
ask again, a voice that comforts in its tones.
May I be your slow and soothing, still small voice.
May there be breeze where I have passed,
not cyclone, not chaos, not whirlwind sense of things of great import,
but only the echoing whisper of
where you have walked. Lord, may I fast from speed.
May I fast from busyness.
May I learn to bless my simple be-ing,
and may I come to know that be-ing
as the fertile soil that roots and grounds
my do-ing. May my days be less full, less likely to
implode, collapsing in on themselves, a black hole
dense with all those tasks, commitments,
things I simply cannot cease to do, for fear of the world—
indeed, the universe—will cease along with them.
Instead, may there be holes and gaps, may there be
light, great periods of wicked, wasteful idleness, that
Devil’s workshop transformed as, slowly, I come to trust
that You are there in the quiet, in the calm, in the
vacuum of nothing planned to do but be alive, that being
quite enough. Lord, may I fast from busyness.
Lord, may I fast from fear.
May I come out from my hiding. May I know sun and
snow, wind and rain, feel heat and cold as armor drops
to only such protection as I need, no less, but most
assuredly no more. May I befriend the shadow.
May I coax it out of hiding, remove its ban of
excommunication, bring it back from exile. May I
embrace that darker side that I have banished for so
long, beaten down, denied, and may I own it fully.
May I give shadow energy a voice, and come to know
that healing lies in unity, polarities in tension, but
never in denial. Lord, may I fast from fear.
May fasting time be sacrament, outward sign, inward
Grace; empty belly, an open space wherein You
Might dwell replacing illusion of fullness.
Lord let me make a fast.
--Gloria Carpeneto
